March 23, igoi.j 
225 
— • — 
^rojjrietors of shooting resorts will find it profitable to advertise 
them in Fokest and Stream. 
Notice. 
All communications intended for Forest and Stream should 
always be addressed to the Forest and Stream Publishing Co,, and 
not to any individual connected with the paper. 
Forest Reserves as Game Preserves. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
I have been asked to give my opinion on the question 
of using the forest reserves as game preserves. This 
question has already been brought out by Forest and 
Stream. 
It is very plain to all who are familiar with big-game 
conditions in the Rocky Mountains that if sometliing is 
not done to provide refuges for the elk, deer and ante- 
lope still left, the greater part of these animals will soon 
cease to exist. Passing protective laws by the States does 
not protect the game. I have already in a previous letter 
to Forest and Stream shown why this is so. I will in 
this letter take up the situation here in northwest 
Wyoming, which section now contains the last of the 
great elk herds of the West, and also large numbers of 
antelope, deer and mountain sheep. 
In the Yellowstone Park, which takes up a tract of 
;about fifty miles wide by seventy miles long, in the 
aiorthwest corner of the State, the game finds a haven 
wkere it is absolutely protected at all times. The Park 
vproyides both summer and winter range for the deer, 
.antelope and sheep within its boundary, and of them 
.nothing more need be said. 
With the elk it is different. I suppose that at least 
■jOjOOO elk stay in the Park summer and winter. But 
.there are at least 60,000 elk in northwestern Wyoming, 
iincluding the Park, and of these about half summer in 
ithe Park, the rest outside, on the headwaters of the 
;Snake, Green and Wind rivers, and all that cannot find 
winter range in the Park come south to winter, prob- 
ahly 50,000 in all. 
The great problem is to find winter range for these 
elk without interfering with the live stock interests of 
the State. The increase of these herds must be at least 
10,000 each year. The settlers who kill elk from the 
herds for meat number less than 1,000 all told, and only 
about 150 non-resident sportsmen hunt each year in the 
State. Thus, if each settler— man, woman or child — 
used three elk a year, which is a fair average, and the 
sportsmen killed their full allowance, the herds would 
increase. 
As a matter of fact, the herds are fully holding 
their own, and I think are slowly increasing. I esti- 
mate that fully as many elk are killed by wild animals 
and die of starvation as are shot. 
The deer outside of the Park are just about holding 
their own. They are so wild and shy that they are not 
much hunted for meat by the settlers, and sportsmen 
only kill the bucks. Their main enemy is the cougar, 
which kills great numbers. The same is true of the 
mountain sheep. The antelope are slowly decreasing, more 
through the killing of the young by coyotes than anj^- 
thing else. The settlers kill very few and the sports- 
men kill only bucks. 
Thus, if present conditions could be maintained, game 
would hold its own here forever. What is going to close 
out the game is the settlement of the game ranges and 
.the destruction will be from two causes — starvation dur- 
;ing the winter from lack of food, and shooting by 
J settlers and sportsmen. By a proper sj'^stem of forest 
ireserves, it is possible to preserve the greater part of 
ttlie elk herds, and to keep the deer and sheep at their 
{present numbers. 
Tfhie cloance for the antelope is practically hopeless. 
'Their range is in the open country, and nothing can 
jprevent their being counted out of existence by the herds 
■.ssaA flock's of cattle and sheep. 
A few of the antelope even now take to the timber 
tdMsring the summer, but an antelope is perfectly helpless 
ffja snow that does not bother an elk or deer in the least, 
and for this reason cannot winter in the mountains. And 
wtiat game cannot winter in the high mountain valleys 
must perish. 
Now as regards using the forest reserves as game pre- 
serves. In the first place, the present Teton Forest Re- 
serve, which lies south of and adjoining the Yellowstone 
Park Timber Reserve, should be extended eighteen miles 
east and forty-eight miles south, thus taking in the great 
bodies of timber on the Wind River, Gros Ventre and 
Hoback mountains. All the agricultural land of any 
value that woitld be inside of this reserve is already 
settled upon, and it should be provided that no vested 
rights held by settlers should be invaded. If this should 
be done, the enlarged reserve properly patrolled and the 
forest rangers, as at present, instructed to enforce the 
State game laws, the future of the game in northwestern 
W5'oming would be assured. Suitable regulations should 
govern the grazing of stock on the reserve, and only 
actual residents on the reserve should be allowed to 
graze stock thereon. 
It must be remembered that the altitude of north- 
western Wyoming is such that hay is the only crop that 
can be raised with certainty. The ranchmen are de- 
pendent tipon stock growing, and without the use of the 
outside range the ranches are valtieless, as enough stock 
cannot be kept on 320 acres the year round to support a 
family. The wild game can winter in much deeper snow 
than can cattle, and the proposed reserve contains win- 
ter range enough for all the game at present upon it, with- 
.oul encroaching on the range needed for what stock 
would belong to the ranchman upon the reserve. It is 
the tramp herds of stock belonging to men who own not a 
-dollar's worth of real estate that are destroying the pub- 
lic range. The free range is.no longer large enough to 
support all the stock upon it, and a distinction should 
Ibe made in favor of the men who are improving ranches 
:and building tip the countrj^ 
It would not be necessary to absolutel}^ protect the 
game upon the reserve. 
The Yellow.stone Park is a case in point. Neither in 
the Park nor in the Yellowstone and Teton reserves can 
the elk which summer in the Park find winter food. 
Three-fourths of the elk in Wyoming are now south of 
the Teton Reserve, on the tract which I propose should 
be added to the reserve. On the Big Gros Ventre and 
on. Green River for miles the foothills are black with 
them, thousands being in sight at once. At Lloyd's cattle 
ranch, on the Big Gros Ventre, which is in the center 
of the winter range, it has been impossible to keep the 
elk out of the hay corrals this winter, and a large quan- 
tity of hay has been destroyed by them, 
Northwestern Wyoming now contains as many head of 
game as can possibly find food during the winter, and to 
protect at all times the game, or to prohibit shooting on 
the present forest reserves, or on any which may be 
created hereafter, would only extend the conditions now 
prevailing in the Yellowstone Park — viz., not enough win- 
ter food within the resen'e for the game. If the east, west 
and south boundaries of the Park were fenced and the 
elk prevented from coming out to winter, three-fourths of 
the elk that summer in the Park would starve the first 
winter. The present Teton Forest Reserve contains very 
little winter range, and the bulk of the elk winter oti the 
tract which I suggest be added to it. A few elk go onto 
the desert between Green River and Big Sandy to win- 
ter, but less and less go every year, as the domestic sheep 
are cleaning out the grass, and many of the elk starve. 
The proposed reserve consists mainly of high, rough 
country and lieavj'' bodies of timber, though there is mucli 
park land and the valleys of the streams are more or 
less open. The farming land lies, with a few excep- 
tions, in three compact bodies. The largest is in Jack- 
son's Hole, the next largest along the Green River, and 
the smallest in the Hoback Basin. There would be a 
dozen large lakes and numberless small ones within the 
reserve ; the waters all swarm with trout, and as a camp- 
ing ami pleasure groitnd the entire tract, including the 
Teton Reserve, is fully equal to the Park. The main 
sources of the Green River and the headwaters of some 
important tributaries of the Snake and Wind rivers, and 
the great forests which supply these streams, would be 
within its boundary, and if it is to be the policy of the 
Government to protect the forests at the heads of the 
streams, this reserve should be established without delay. 
The Teton Reserve covers comparatively little of the 
forests of northwestern Wyoming, and the protection 
of the game would be only a part of the benefit to be 
derived from the establishment of this reserve. 
To sum up, the forest reserves, as game preserves, 
should not be absoltttely protected, as is the Yellowstone 
Park, but only reasonable restrictions, such as the State 
laws on shooting, shotild be enforced. When possible, the 
reserves should be enlarged to take in all mountain coun- 
try and bodies of timber lying on the headwaters of 
streams. No restrictions should be placed on the reason- 
able use of the range, or on ctttting timber for ranch 
use by settlers. Any agricultural land within the re- 
serve should be left open to settlement. 
By so doing the object for which the reserves were 
established, the protection of the timber and the streams, 
would be fulfilled. And what is important, though in a 
lesser degree, the protection of the game a:id fish would 
also be accomplished, without interfering with the proper 
development of the stock growing interests of the West. 
Wm. Wells. 
Wells, Wyo. 
Mr. Tilden's Deer. 
Schenectady, N. Y., March 13. — In your issue of 
March 2 you were appealed to by Mr. S. W. Tilden to 
concede him the privilege of a statement so that you 
might have both sides of a question in which he was in- 
terested. Inasmuch as the other side has not been given 
you, and inasmuch as Mr. Tilden's statement so far is 
entirely ex parte, would it not be well to publish the 
other .^ide as viewed from Mr. Tilden's own statement 
published with the very praiseworthy motive oi ""contra- 
dicting and correcting the garbled reports that have ap- 
peared in various new.spapers" ? This porticn of the 
statement refers, of Course, to an event which fs known 
iar and wide owing to the importance of the matter and 
of the persons interested. 
Statement. 
Two gentlemen have a snccesshil expedition to Maine. 
They bring home +0 Schenectady four deer obtained in 
four days' hunting, shipping the same b.v American Ex- 
press to Schenectad}'', where the deer arrived after Nov. 
15. It not being clear that it is lawful to possess venison 
after Nov. 15, the gentlemen consult two of the "best 
lawyers"' in the city, who, with that intimate knowledge of 
the law which two of the best lawyers of any city of the 
size of Schenectady are supposed to possess, told them 
that .such possession after Nov. 15 was not unlawful. Of 
course, such advice ought to be an excuse for all viola- 
tions of the law committed by the gentlemen in having 
the venison in their possession. 
They then generously distributed their game among 
their friends. 
Suddenly, without warning, they are called upon by the 
Chief Gaitie Protector to explain, which they say they 
did, but the benighted Protector evidently failed to un- 
derstand that two of the '"best lawyers" in this city ought 
to know the law better than himself. As a result, he 
says that they were each fined $roo by the Protector, which 
afterward was changed to $50, but fails to slate by whom — 
due, one would gather, from the statement, to their 
threats to contest the case, which, of course, would have 
jeopardized the existence of the commission and the se- 
curity of the State. It is not often that one meets wuth 
."^uch enthusiastic advocates of stringent game laws, with 
"such various and sundry ideas" in regard to the phrase- 
ology and enforcement thereof, so that the promise of an 
explanation of their views awakens our curiosity and int- 
terest and makes its anxious to have these views more 
fully ventilated and set forth. 
Under the new and economic administration of this 
State, it seems that the retention in office of Protector 
Scott with his avaricious and grasping methods could 
easily be prevented,, with the facts as published by you in 
Mr. Tilden's communication presented to the Governor. 
One is led to inquire howcA^er, why a penalty which 
could have been $100 per deer was reduced to $25 or $50 
from each gentleman, and ask whether or not some kind 
friend of the gentlemen did not make some representa- 
tion to the Protector as to the circumstances, whether or 
not some influence was not used before the judge who 
imposed the fine by which extreme leniency was shown 
to the gentlemen and not objected to by Protector Scott, 
the author of and villain in the "legal holdup." Of 
course, being a public servant, if S. W. Tilden is to be 
believed the game protector cannot be honest and his 
action in this case was prompted by spite and envy, it 
not falling often to his lot to deal with such successful 
sportsmen. 
Let us all join in an attempt to secure the passage of a 
law based on Mr. Tilden's ideas, abolishing the office of 
game protector, taking away from all officials the discre- 
tion to be lenient and rid this State of this disgraceful 
system, which follows np and punishes those who have in 
their possession game after the time prohibited by law. 
And, yet, Mr. Editor, the members of the game pro- 
tective associations here approve Protector Scott's posi- 
tion in the matter, and that of the police justice who im- 
posed the fine, while those who aided Mr. S. W. Tilden 
in getting off so easily regret that they were induced to 
help him, for his statement misleads as to the law and its 
application and puts the State Game Commission in a 
false light as well as others here to whom he appealed 
for assistance.^ W. J. O. 
Smooth Bore and Rifle. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your correspondent Sydney G. Fisher, whose letter ad- 
vocating the use of .smooth bores for large game shoot- 
ing appeared in your paper of Jan. 26, is not quite cor- 
rect in thinking that Sir Samuel Baker was the first 
to introduce rifles for African shooting. 
That great hunter stated that when he first went to 
Ceylon in 1845 he found smooth bores invariably used, and 
he believed himself to have been the first to introduce 
rifles into that island. In India they were used by some 
British sportsmen as early, certainly, as 1836, and prob- 
ah\y before then. 
Gordon Cumming took rifles to South Africa in 1843, 
and when starting on his first expedition to the interior 
he had one single and three double barrels, besides three 
double smooth bores which he stated were for rough work 
on horseback when quick loading was required. He seems 
to have rarely or never used these except for shooting • 
feathered game. Sir Samuel Baker did not begin shoot- 
ing in Africa till about 1861. 
An Englishman named G. Nicholson (whose opinions 
as to the best weapons I mentioned in a letter to Forest 
ANh Stream last April) was personally acquainted with 
Gordon Cumming. and attributed his want of success in 
killing elephants with a few shots to the fact of his not 
using smooth bores, because the rifles of that period had 
such sharp twists in the grooves that charges of powder 
giving sufficient penetration for efficiency against the 
pachydermata could not be employed without causing the 
bullets to strip. 
It is remarkable that, although smooth bores of ordi- 
nary caliber were habitually and very successfully loaded 
with heavy charges for that special purpose, no one ap- 
pears to have adopted rifles for such loads by the Amer- 
ican plan of having a slower turn in the grooves, until 
the late Captain Forsythe, conservator of forests in central 
India, had a double muzzleloader made on that principle 
about i860. It carried round balls fifteen to the pound, 
was accurate Avith five drams of powder and as easy to 
load as a smooth bore. The grooves had one turn in 
8 feet 8 inches. 
Some years before this Sir Samuel Baker had partially 
solved the problem of combining accuracy with great 
muzzle velocity. One of his rifles for Cej'lon shooting 
was made to order, carrying a round belted ball of 3 
ounces weight with i5 drams of powder. It had two 
grooves, in which the belt fitted mechanically, and thus 
prevented stripping, although they had the absurd rate of 
twist of once in 3 feet. 
Two grooved rifles were invented, I think, in Germany, 
and. according to my experience, were equal in accuracy 
to the very best of those which carried round balls. 
Their only disadvantage was that loading was rather 
slow, owing to the necessity of pushing the belt carefully 
quite straight into the grooves. 
The proper charge for the old-fashioned rifles was con- 
sidered to be the bullet mould full of powder. This gave 
only lyi drams for a i6-bore, 2 drams ior a 12 and 2% 
drams for a lO-bore. They shot with great accuracy, but 
had a very high trajectory and poor penetration in pro- 
portion to the weight of lead. When of very large bore, 
they acted well ttpon thin-skinned animals. For in- 
stance. General Shakespear, in his book on Indian wild 
sports, mentions that one of his rifles carrying ten balls 
to the pound with 2yi drams of powder, penetrated com- 
pletely through a bear at 250 yards. 
On the other hand. Colonel Campbell, in his "Old 
Forest Ranger." and also in his "Indian Journal." states 
that a bullet from his 12-bore rifle flattened against the 
forehead of a charging bison, only knocking down the ani- 
mal for a moment. 
Since then_ it has been proved that a ball of sixteen to 
the pound, if driven by 3 drams of powder, will certainly 
penetrate a bison's brain when striking the forehead at 
any distance up to 40 yards. 
One reason why the majority of African hunters, in the 
first half of the nineteenth century, used smooth bores is 
that they were far easier to load on horseback than rifles 
before breechloading was adopted ; but it is also evi- 
dent that individual weapons, specially made for ball 
shooting, had a much longer accurate range than ordi- 
Jtary shotguns. 
An old African hunter writing some years ago to the 
leading English sporting paper, after mentioning a large 
number of rifles which he had used (including some by 
the best London, Birmingham and Dublin makers, to- 
gether with some by the Winchester and Remington com- 
panies), added this remarkable statement: "For my own 
part, I have followed the example of many of the first- 
rate game shots I have seen at work, and have killed 
most of my gaiiie with specially built smooth bore guns, 
varjdng from 6 to 16 bore, and among these I cannot re- 
member one which shot badly. I found I could account 
